Being educators in extreme contexts. When practice challenges theory

Abstract

Educating in extreme contexts means accomplishing a challenge with at the same time different degrees of complexity and difficulty. Of course, the skills and professionalism of an educator (professional, teacher, children’s entertainer) who works in such contexts must have characteristics of such specialization so as, in some way, to “systemize” the emergency, its being not a random event to be managed, but a condition of the working context. Starting from these premises, this contribution intends highlighting the importance which the professional training of educators takes on in the construction of transversal skills in particularly problematic contexts, in the proposal of a phenomenological perspective of education, focused on the subjective value of experience and sense making.